Talk:Non-binary/@comment-64.229.182.15-20140922063120
I am a non-binary male. I feel the need to say so as to clarify why this label isn't a paradox, as well as to state my opinion and join the discussion of what gender is and where it fits into our existence. I was born with male genitalia, and as far as I know I am attracted to females solely. When I became interested in gender politics and ideas I approached it purely from a social justice stance, not understanding how I as a straight man had any place in the discussion outside of trying to keep people from assaulting one another. But as I tried to understand the complexities of the transgender community I realized I really needed to separate the definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and breakdown the development of the ‘personality,’ before I could have any sort of definitive understanding of who I am or who they were. As I understand it now: sex and gender are two separate things, but are related in minor biological influences and associations that manifest more in some personalities than others, but not enough to be consider one standard with numerous deviations. The sex labels male and female are solely an observational title given by differentiating between the two observable types of humans. This has nothing to do with gender, which is why I am comfortable saying that I am a male; I have a dick between my legs and it’s been there for a while. The tool that we use to determine what is attributed to gender is broken, because from individual to individual there isn’t any real clear consensus as to what the normal traits of either gender are. There isn’t a control group, so it’s best to approach gender as if it is an umbrella term for innumerable traits that are developed through various means of external stimuli and genetic predispositions based on family lineage, ultimately coming together into the personality, the whole individual. By taking an individualistic stance to gender and sex you get the wonderful privilege of being able to shrug off this oppressive idea of normality and deviation and approach every one with the respect you would normally just afford to the people you thought you liked. Everyone should treat everyone with a very base level of respect that shouldn’t be influenced or swayed by anything to do with their personality, by virtue of them just being a human being. The individual is the personality, made unique by the statistical impossibility of having the exact same experiences and biological makeup as another, meaning that we are all incomparable and without normality. Gender as we know it is a social construct, which doesn’t make it any less real, but it is not inherent to anyone and it follows no finite rules, which means there is no just reason to make prejudicial judgments about another based on their gender identity, because theirs is as shaky and undefined as yours is, made clear only by what you say you are. Once we figure this out, we can work on making every individual feel pretty ‘okay’ on a day to day basis. That would be a worthy goal.